Taiwan’s government is warning cuts to its budget could affect public services and its ability to fight Chinese propaganda. Opposition parties, which control the legislature, have already made cuts of US$2.85 billion, about 3% of the budget.
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00:00Taiwan's government is warning cuts to its budget could affect public services and its
00:05ability to fight Chinese propaganda.
00:08It's urging the opposition, which controls the legislature, to reconsider its cutbacks.
00:14Louise Watt has been following this story for us and joins us from our Taipei newsroom.
00:19Louise, how much does the opposition want to cut and what could this affect?
00:24Well, Rhys, the opposition has used its majority in the legislature to push through spending
00:34cuts of almost three billion U.S. dollars.
00:37That's about three percent of the government's proposed budget.
00:42Now the opposition parties, the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party, they say these
00:47cuts are reasonable.
00:48They say the government has been wasting money in the past and these cuts aren't going to
00:53stop it doing its job.
00:56But the government says that the cuts are irrational and it says that the opposition
01:01is simply trying to stop it from being able to govern.
01:06Now to hit home its point, the cabinet this morning held a press conference led by the
01:12premier.
01:13He called on the opposition to reverse their cuts.
01:16He said they're going to have a serious impact on its ability to carry out its work and could
01:23affect public services.
01:25Also at the press conference were each government department talking about the effect that the
01:30cuts would have on them, including the Mainland Affairs Council, which said it's the cuts
01:37would harm their ability to counter Chinese disinformation.
01:41This is what the deputy minister said.
01:53Now this is because, now this is because the opposition is taking aim at the government's
02:19media budget.
02:20In one example, it's cutting 60% of the government's advertising budget.
02:27Now the government, now the opposition says that's because these advertising budgets are
02:32just a way for the ruling party to get free publicity.
02:36But the government says no, it's the way for the government to communicate with the public
02:41what its policies are and that these cuts are also going to affect things like public
02:46awareness campaigns.
02:47So for instance, telling people how to stop themselves becoming victims of the ever-growing
02:52scams, for instance.
02:54Now this more broadly illustrates the difficulties that President Lai Ching-de and his government
03:01have had since they came to power in May, because when they came to power, the legislature
03:08became dominated by the opposition.
03:11They're having trouble pushing through their policies.
03:15Now will the opposition heed the premier's call to reverse their cuts?
03:21Well these $3 billion worth of cuts have already been decided and I think it's fairly unlikely
03:28they would reverse those.
03:30But discussions are continuing because there's still the full 2025 budget to be voted on
03:37tomorrow.
03:39The opposition is still deliberating over hundreds of proposals, including cuts to gender
03:45equality services.
03:47There's a proposal there to cut the budget from half a million US dollars to $90.90.
03:55And one that's going to get a lot of attention is cuts to subsidies for Taiwan's loss-making
04:02power company.
04:05Taiwan's electricity prices are very heavily subsidised.
04:10If they start cutting subsidies there, electricity bills will soon rise.
04:16Those are the kinds of cuts that the public's going to start noticing very quickly.